All the conditions for victory existed but

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The main lesson of the Spanish revolution was that all the conditions for a victory by the working class over both the "fascist" capitalists and their "democratic" counterparts in the Popular Front were in place-save one: a revolutionary party.

In addition, the Spanish revolution exposed forever the bankruptcy of two political tendencies in the workers' movement that had a mass following in Spain and represented the left wing in the struggle against Franco. The first was anarchism, represented by the CNT/FAI (National Confederation of Labor/Iberian Anarchist Federation); the second was centrism, represented by the POUM (Workers Party of Marxist Unification).

It was through these organizations that the most militant Spanish workers sought to find their way around the political obstacles posed by the betrayals of the Popular Front. Both these organizations, however, because of an erroneous political doctrine and an incorrect political orientation, were not up to this historic task.

Anarchism

For a number of specific historical reasons, the largest tendency among the Spanish workers was anarchism, or more correctly, anarcho-syndicalism. The Anarchists rejected politics and party-building and substituted the trade unions as the instrument for making a revolution.

The main working-class base for the Anarchists were the landless agricultural workers of Andalusia, who were spread over a large geographic area, and the industrial workers of Catalonia, who were concentrated in the factories of Barcelona.

The principal Anarchist organization was the CNT (National Confederation of Labor). Founded in 1911, the CNT claimed 1.5 million members by 1931. It was the largest labor organization in Spain, with its closest competition coming from the UGT (General Union of Workers), which was controlled by Socialists and Stalinists.

A central tenet of Anarchist belief, which ironically would destroy Spanish anarchism as a social movement, was opposition to all forms of state government.

In opposition to the capitalist state the anarchists were capable of militant mass action. But more than that was needed. In the course of the revolution, the working class, if it was to be victorious, had to form its own alternative state structures; i.e., create a workers' state based on democratically elected workers' and peasants' councils.

The leaders of the Anarchists-right wing and left wing— rejected this basic necessity in theory as well as action and capitulated at every juncture to the Popular Front.

During the course of the revolution the Anarchist leaders abandoned their own doctrine of implacable opposition to all state structures. In the elections of February 1936 they supported, albeit with hesitation, the Popular Front.

In July 1936 the Anarchists held power in Catalonia-Spain's industrial heartland. The CNT and its militias had defeated the fascists at great cost in lives. Subsequently, they gave the power back to the Popular Front government and provided a left cover for the dismantling of the soviet-style institutions the Anarchist workers had created.

And in May 1937, when Anarchist workers responded by the thousands to a Stalinist attack in Barcelona, the Anarchist leaders demobilized their ranks and thus set the stage for the final triumph of the Popular Front gov -ernment. Two months later they were rewarded for their collaboration by being thrown out of the government.

"After all", the Anarchists said later, "we could have taken power in July 1936 or May 1937, but we didn't, not because we were unable, but because we did not wish to, because we were against every kind of dictatorship."

The goal of every revolution, however, is to put a new class in power. The Anarchists, therefore, by not taking power were leaving the "dictatorship" in the hands of the old ruling class-the capitalists.

Trotsky maintained that the Anarchist rank and file instinctively yearned to make a revolution but were kept from this road by their leadership. "Thus Anarchism," Trotsky said, "which wished merely to be antipolitical, proved in reality to be antirevolutionary, and in the more critical moments—counterrevolutionary."

The POUM The POUM has long been identified by Stalinist and bourgeois historians as a "Trotskyist" party. The POUM did not regard itself as such, and Trotsky and the Fourth International did not accept this characterization.

The POUM, however, was the biggest obstacle to the plans of the Stalinists and the Popular Front government to defend capitalist property relations under the guise of limiting the civil war to a fight against fascism.

At the height of the revolution (from July 1936 to July 1937) the POUM and its militias had nearly 40,000 members and was second only to the Anarchists in influence among the revolutionary masses of Catalonia.

The POUM appeared to be a revolutionary-socialist party because it attacked Stalinism and the Popular Front government from the left and, most importantly, advocated socialist revolution as the most effective way to fight Franco.

But actions speak louder than words, and, un -fortunately, during the most important periods of the revolution (July 1936 and May 1937), the POUM leaders failed the most important test for a revolutionary leadership: What to do next.

For lack of a clear revolutionary program, the POUM was doomed to be a centrist party—an organization that vacillates between reformist and revolutionary positions. This paralyzed the leadership of the POUM.

Additionally, the POUM leadership inflicted isolation on its membership by refusing to form its own nuclei of supporters in the CNT for fear of friction with the Anarchist leaders. To avoid antagonism, they would build "their own" institutions and not penetrate the mass institutions that were led by reformists.

Trotsky's criticisms of the POUM on this question were unequivocal: "By isolating the revolutionary Trotsky warned that this regroupment of the revolutionary left was unprincipled because even though the program of the POUM claimed to be Marxist and working class on paper, the party would be indecisive in action because of different positions on Stalinism, reformism, and anarchism. This proved to be the case.

One year earlier, Trotsky proposed that the Spanish section, which had grown to 1500 members by 1934, accept an invitation extended by the left-moving youth group of the Spanish Socialist Party to do common political work. The Socialist Party youth group was attracting thousands of young workers because it appeared to be a revolutionary alternative to Stalinism.

By this "entry" into the SP youth, Trotsky argued, the Spanish section could become a pole of attraction-based on a clear program—for thousands of radicalizing young workers. The leadership of the Spanish section rejected this perspective for growth. Ultimately, the Stalinists would organizationally capture the Socialist youth and win 20,000 of their members.

The POUM underestimated the role and influence of the Stalinist, Socialist and Anarchist organizations. And because it preferred fusion on an amorphous minimum program, the POUM was condemned, in the last analysis, to tailending, that is, capitulating to the Popular Front.

As predicted by Trotsky, the POUM supported the Popular Front in the February 1936 elections and participated in the Catalan Generalitat— the semiautonomous Popular Front govemment of Catalonia.

Despite the unquestionable revolutionary initiative of POUM members, their hands were tied because of their "critical" support of the Popular Front. They were unable to take the offensive and lead the masses. In fact, their policies helped the capitalist class reassert its rule over the workers and peasants, thus assuring a military victory for the fascists.

After the Barcelona events, which was the last chance for the POUM to play a revolutionary role, POUM members were murderously repressed, slandered, and disarmed. The Stalinists spread the frame-up in their international press that the POUMists were "agents of the fascists" and "Franco's fifth column." With the liquidation of the POUM, the Stalinists were able to eliminate the only revolutionary current that could have challenged them.

The Spanish workers and peasants tried mightily to break out of the straitjacket imposed on them by their leaders. In July 1936 and May 1937 they ran far ahead of their leadership.

But tragically, the workers did not have enough time to build the indispensable instrument—the revolutionary party.

Today, in South Africa, the Philippínes, El Salvador, and all across the globe, working people are faced with the same historic challenge. If revolutionary parties are not built in time, the inevitable struggles of the masses for self- emancipation will be derailed by the same forces that crushed the Spanish revolution.

SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1986 9

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SPANISH REVOLUTION Front government, inspired and wholeheartedly supported